


with the passing of the years

by diwata



Series: i follow rivers [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Blank Period, Canon Compliant, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-04-21 08:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22056826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diwata/pseuds/diwata
Summary: “I lost my way once,” he says a bit lower, as if he doesn’t want his daughter to hear.“How did you find your way home?” Sarada asks.After sometime, he says, “A red string.”“Papa, seriously —”“I’m very serious,” he insists.— Sasuke and Sakura in five scenes, from the end of the war to the Blank Period and beyond
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Series: i follow rivers [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596583
Comments: 24
Kudos: 200





	with the passing of the years

**First dawn**

Naruto and Sakura sit with Sasuke the night before the New Year at his parents’ estate; he wears a black hakama and his clan’s crest proudly on his back. Sasuke sweeps the altar, even in his formal wear, with the same type of focused vigor he once had for training. They burn incense and pour sake and mostly keep silent. When Sasuke rises, they understand it is time to leave, to go back home. He watches their retreating backs, and with some satisfaction, Sakura’s exasperated shove of Naruto’s shoulder.

When Sakura appears on his doorstep the morning after, Sasuke stares at her blankly as she stands in front of him. Bemused, it takes him a while to react; there are very few things that don’t make sense to Sasuke. Sakura, he thinks, might always be one of them. She gazes up at him in her civilian clothes, embarrassed in a way that is unbecoming of the Fifth’s disciple, who once punched a goddess in the face. “I didn’t bring anything,” she begins without greeting, “I mean, yesterday; I didn’t realize we were going to, that you were going to… uh.” Sakura tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Anyway,” she tries again, bowing to him, “please accept my offering. I hope for Sasuke-kun’s favor again in the coming year.” She holds out a wooden box to him with both hands.

“This is?” Sasuke asks, taking the box from her. He regards the gift curiously, with a single eyebrow arched in question.

“Namagashi,” she responds quickly, “I wasn’t sure what your mother preferred, so I—”

“Thank you,” he says. With a nod to the peaceful darkness around him, he bows back. “Happiness to you on the dawn of a New Year.” As she prepares to turn around, he holds the door open wider with his right leg. Accepting his invitation, Sakura steps in. “Are you headed to the village gates?” Sasuke asks. She follows him as he ambles to the altar to place her offering. He slides the top of the wooden box off carefully, revealing the artful namagashi. “Sakura,” he remarks, half-smiling at his own joke.

She rubs the back of her head sheepishly. “Too cliche?” Sakura asks. He raises his hand as if to say, not at all. “No, I usually watch from Hokage Mountain.”

“That’s half an hour away,” Sasuke tells her, and she realizes her miscalculation. “Come to the village gates.” Sakura almost blushes at the intimacy of it all as she waits for him to be ready, as they walk to observe the New Year together.

Hatsuhinode with Sasuke is an unraveling. Wistful, Sakura tells him a tale of a young maiden that was blessed with enlightenment from early morning sunlight, how she became Katsuyu’s first master. He listens earnestly, tilting his head slightly towards her. Sasuke had only been away from the village for two months, but a part of him seems to be at peace. Here, he feels softer, more content. In another village, a young girl watches her genin teammate as they share the first sunrise on a muddy river bank. In another, an elderly couple watches from their front porch. In Konoha, two shinobi sit on the tall walls of the village; they talk about the Shikkotsu Forest, about Suna, about all the ends of the world one must travel to. They are happening again and again, in different iterations of each other.

This is how they bear themselves to each other, in the first morning light of a new year. As Sakura shivers, Sasuke wraps his cloak around her shoulders and denies her selflessness, because he notices her already, hidden in the folds of his fabric.

On the way back, they walk through the deserted Uchiha district. They stroll through, occasionally passing by certain landmarks; the lake where Sasuke first learned katon, the old florist where Fugaku would buy Mikoto flowers on their anniversary. The Uchiha name, so steeped in honor and duty and elite blood, had made Sakura forget how mundane these people’s lives must have been before the tragedy. But part of Sakura does remember— how happy Sasuke was as a child, and how kind. For Sasuke, she longs for a life that could have been as simple and mundane as homework and housework, of children and lily bouquets. 

Sasuke reminisces about his mother’s favorite desserts in elaborate detail as they walk by an abandoned dessert shop. Halfway through the long list, Sakura hears a rustling sound behind her and pivots on her heel. Lifting a plastic crate, she sees two wiry black kittens. One is so small, Sakura could hold it easily in the palm of her hand. The runt of the litter, Sakura thinks. The larger kitten meows loudly at her. The runt hisses at her as she picks him up. “Who are you hissing at?” she chides the kitten, who looks at her innocently in response.

“A stray?” Sasuke asks. There is a flicker of warmth in his voice that Sakura might have missed if she weren’t paying attention.

“Two,” she corrects, holding up the little one’s paw and returning to Sasuke’s side. The other kitten follows quietly. “They must be brothers.”

Sasuke looks at Sakura through the corner of his eye. “You’re keeping them?”

She shrugs. “Isn’t it sad?” Sakura asks as the little one swipes at her hair playfully. “They don’t have a home.”

* * *

**I used to—**

“The war ended only a week ago,” Sakura remarks, “don’t they think it’s too soon for fireworks?” She thinks of Yamanaka-san and Neji, of the injured shinobi in her medical tent. She thinks about hospital double shifts and attending medics and rotations, rotations; and Sasuke-kun’s new arm, and Naruto being hailed as a hero in the town square. Her legs dangle over the edge of the hospital’s rooftop. “Still, they’re very pretty,” she admits, and takes a sip of her hana sake. “Did you know I used to,” Sakura says, turning to her companion. She remembers fireworks on the beach alone, staring up at the night sky. When she was younger, she declared her love to the sky and promised to wait. She watches the flares rise and fall. “Oh,” she mutters, “it’s nothing.”

Sasuke thinks very little of fireworks, but alcohol loosens his tongue a bit. “What did you used to do?” he asks. “When we were genin, didn’t you have allergies?” He twists open a second bottle. “You used to sneeze so much, it gave away our position.”

Sakura scoffs at his taunting. “That was a long time ago,” she says, half-defensive, but mostly surprised that he would remember such a small detail.

“Perhaps we didn’t need to cross so many fields,” Sasuke says mysteriously. 

“So it was sabotage,” Sakura remarks, and kicks his foot. 

Sasuke waves his bottle. “That was a long time ago,” he parrots, and bumps her shoulder with his in response. Sakura’s sake spills over her lap and across the ledge. Clumsily, she ducks down before realizing she hadn’t brought napkins. She stands up to get her lab coat to wipe down the ledge, but Sasuke has already beaten her to it. As she stands, he ducks down to help clean. Their heads clash rather painfully, and she cuts his bottom lip with her front teeth by accident.

“Sorry,” she says, thoroughly mortified. She repeats it over and over as she heals his lip.

“It’s fine,” Sasuke tells her, feeling the spot where she had cut him. He seems amused, as if there’s something she hasn’t realized yet that he has already caught wind of.

When she tells the story to Ino, the blonde admonishes her. “Forehead-chan,” she says, exasperated, and extremely over her best friend’s antics, “how could you not notice? Your first kiss?” Sakura’s brow furrows. “And how did you end up on that rooftop anyway?” Ino clicks her tongue. “Hey, Forehead-chan,” she says, waving a hand in front of her face. “Anything? Crickets? Have you gone into shock?” Sakura buries her face in her hands.

* * *

**Red String**

Sarada was a trouble child, much to her mother’s dismay. Sakura recounts the time Sarada went missing to Kakashi the next day, who remarks that she’s taken after her father quite a bit. Sakura responds with a prompt punch in the face. Sarada hadn’t truly went missing, after all; she was merely searching the entire village for their cats, Ren and Nobu. Sarada had cried for days after they went missing and had taken it upon herself to bring them back. No, Kakashi realizes later with the left side of his face swollen from impact, with the way she longed and the way she worried, Sarada was her mother’s daughter until the very end.

“Don’t fret,” Sakura tells Sarada when she finally comes home, “cats know their way back.” Anticipating her daughter’s follow-up question, she taps Sarada’s nose gently with her fingertip. “By scent.”

Sarada tells the story to her father many years later. Sasuke says, “And did they?” Sarada nods. “I lost my way once,” he says a bit lower, as if he doesn’t want his daughter to hear.

“How did you find your way home?” Sarada asks. He stops for a moment, mid-step.

After sometime, he says, “A red string.”

His daughter does not look satisfied. “Papa, _ seriously—"_

_ “_I’m very serious,” he insists. Sasuke hides his gaze with the curtain of his long, black hair, but Sarada catches the corners of his mouth twitch, ever so slightly.

* * *

**Happy Accident**

Sasuke is a little taken aback when Sarada asks him what him and Sakura’s first kiss was like. “Mama won’t tell me,” Sarada whined, glasses crooked on her face. Sasuke feels himself shy away from his daughter’s prodding as he leans back in his chair. Aware of his discomfort, Sakura pokes Sarada’s forehead affectionately.

“I thought I told you it was a story for another day, Sarada,” Sakura scolds as she sets down the dinner plates.

“It _ is _ another day, Mama,” Sarada says, sticking her bottom lip out. Sakura rolls her eyes.

“What are we going to do with—”

“There were fireworks,” Sasuke states plainly.

“Oh, Papa is a romantic!” Sarada swoons, excited to press forward with her interrogation.

“No, there were literal fireworks,” Sakura clarifies. Sighing, she succumbs and begins her story. “It was just after the war ended and your clumsy Mama spilled water—”

“Sure, water…”

“... spilled _ water _ on the rooftop and all over herself. Mama and Papa bumped into each other while cleaning and kissed.”

Disappointed, Sarada pouts again. “So it was only an accident?”

“A happy accident,” Sakura says brightly, neglecting to tell the story about Sasuke’s bloody lip.

Sasuke huffs a quiet chuckle and shifts in his seat. “Ah, an accident,” he mumbles; then, more clearly, “an accident indeed.” He smirks at Sarada as Sakura turns her back to fetch the rice from the stove. Sarada’s eyes twinkle knowingly.

“Do you want to hear about your Papa’s first kiss?” Sakura asks scandalously. Sasuke’s eyes widen. Before he can excuse himself, Sarada launches herself into his lap. In the kitchen over dinner, he finds himself wrapped in the laughter of his daughter and his wife. The food grows cold, but he doesn’t mind. He decides: this is enough.

* * *

**Sasuke-kun and Sakura**

In the fall, they send Sarada out on a long mission to Suna. Sakura and Sasuke wish her goodbye at the gate with bento, as is tradition in their family. When they arrive back home, they sit on the steps and watch Nobu’s family emerge from underneath the porch. He carries his youngest in his mouth and places the kitten in front of Sakura. Sakura leans forward to examine the kitten. She holds out the palm of her hand and it promptly climbs on before hissing at her. “Who are you hissing at?” Sakura asks laughingly. Sasuke feels a bubbling in his chest.

“We’re getting old, aren’t we?” she asks, her voice gentle and ripe with memory. He turns towards her, the sunlight illuminating strands of red and blonde in her hair. Age and years of missions away in Suna have bleached the strands of Sakura’s hair. Around the corners of her eyes, the skin has sunken in, and around her mouth he can trace the lines of her laughter. The kitten climbs onto her shoulder. He blinks at her. “Aren’t we,” she repeats, redirecting her gaze to him, “Sasuke-kun?”

“Yes,” he replies as Nobu inspects his hand. “We’re getting old,” he affirms, relief heavy in his tone.

“We are shinobi,” she tells him. Unexpectedly, she kisses him. “But we don’t always have to be.”

“And we weren’t,” Sasuke says.

“Papa,” Sakura says, smiling to herself, “and Mama.” She thinks of Sarada in her Jounin uniform, trekking beyond the village gates. “Sasuke-kun and Sakura,” she says thickly, “do you think that’s how they’ll remember us?”

“No,” he tells her, and sees his wife deflate a bit. “But that doesn’t change anything,” Sasuke offers, “what history makes of us doesn’t change how we know each other.” Sasuke looks at Sakura and remembers daffodils and apples, strays and sunrises, and everything in between. He remembers everything mundane about her, like the size of her fingers and the order of her medical scrolls. He remembers the tea from burnt rice, and flowers waiting for him when he returns home.

“Who knew my husband would be such a poet,” she teases, but squeezes his hand anyway. They sit there for awhile and listen to the birdsong of a Konoha autumn.

My heart has grown rich with the passing of years,

I have less need now than when I was young

To share myself with every corner

Or shape my thoughts into words with my tongue.

— Sara Teasdale, from “The Solitary,” in _Those Who Love_

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't been here in forever, but happy New Year to the SS fandom. I hope you enjoyed this little fic drop.


End file.
